


The Centaur Conundrum

by AnnabethBlack



Category: Drawfee RPF
Genre: Centaur Biology, Centaurs, Other, Other Teenage Mutants, Scifi Fantasy Crossover, We're sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-04 04:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11547153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnabethBlack/pseuds/AnnabethBlack
Summary: Centaurs, Minotaurs, Medusas, and more. All of them exist but not in a way that anyone might expect.Follow a young "cen-teen" as he discovers the facts behind the world around him. After all, it isn't everyday that you learn that your species was created, modified, and even destroyed in the name of science...





	1. The Abstract

_ Pant. Pant. Pant. _

“What do you hear?” A woman’s voice crooned soothingly in Jason’s ear. 

“My… breath… Can’t… breathe…” Jason doubled forward and pushed his palms against the smooth chestnut fur on his knees.

“Yes you can. If you can talk you can breathe.” She sounded so gentle yet firm as she comforted him, just as a mother should. If only she were his mother. He would like that.

_ Pant. Gasp. Pant. Gasp. _

“My heart feels like it might exploded out of my chest!” Jason whined, reaching up to clutch beside a few wiry strands sprouting up in a patch of chest hair he was foolishly proud of.

“Your heart isn’t in your chest Jason. That’s just the oxygen filling your lungs. Just keep breathing.” She corrected him. She corrected him a lot which irked Jason. All adults did that. Why didn’t they just let him express himself? He could have sworn freedom of expression was a basic right.

There was a pause as Jason regained his breath. The woman didn’t speak and Jason swore he could hear a scribbling sound, as if she were making notes.

“What do you hear?” The woman applied a little pressure to her voice, indicating her growing impatience.

_ Pant. Pant. _

“Blood rushing out of my head. Birds… flapping and squawking as they fly away.  The wind roaring through the trees. Snaps and rustles of the forests and the distant thuds of my parents riding after me.” Jason physically strained, his face turning a deeper shade of red as it screwed up. As if that would increase his hearing range. How cute.

“Good. Goooood.” The woman in Jason’s ear crooned, clearly pleased with Jason’s report. She scribbled more things down and sighed before addressing Jason once more.

“Trot until you recover and then I want you to sprint again. Go faster, further. Push yourself harder son.” She sounded so eager, so hopeful. Jason didn’t want to let her down but at the same time his entire body was screaming in protest.

“I…”  _ Pant. _ “Can’t…”  _ Pant. _

“Jason, you were bred for this. You can do it. Sprint for me Jason. I promise this is the last one.” She was so passionate. 

Ever eager to please following praise, Jason straightened up and ran a hand through his long mane of hair. His eyes narrowed as he surveyed the uneven terrain of the forest before him. He hated sports. He loathed exercise but she was right, he had been bred for this. Jason had never cared about what his parents or teachers or peers thought of him but this was different. There was this innate drive to do well for  _ her _ . So he would. He would do his best for her. Maybe in return she would reward him.

-

_ Mche. _

The lab in which Penelope sat was not your standard pristine white clinical cliché. Sure, the floor tiles were white ceramic rectangles placed in a strict, close-knit regimented rows but many individual panels were at least partially stained varying shades of brown where yellow and red liquids had pooled upon them only to crust and seep into the grout between. Many tiles were chipped and cracked where heavy items had been hurled off of the desks while others had corroded, leaving behind a solid fizz from acid puddles that were nearly always accidental. Nearly always.

Warm polished wooden cabinets and cupboards were crammed into the room, their varnish peeling under the heavy weight of scratched up granite worktops. Wires skittered like mice along the back of the worktops against the cream speckled walls, connecting home-made contraptions in haphazard glass cases to a large black box attached to the side of a huge tank. Inside this tank were several floors completely separated from one another, only accessible by hatches locked from the outside that were big enough for a slender arm to snake through. On each floor were about 3 wheels in which different creatures ran around and around tirelessly. While different in species, they all had the same blank stare portrayed through bulging bloodshot eyes. The squeaks of the wheels and snuffles of their occupants could be heard over the hum of the machines that they powered.

In a corner far away from this tank, Penelope lounged in a scratchy swivel chair, her beady little eyes trained on a series of monitors in front of her. She watched as Jason shot across the path of various cameras, her eyes occasionally flicking down to the glass-faced stopwatch gripped tightly in her ham-coloured fist. When he stopped again Penelope noted the time.

“Wonderful,” she smiled, leaning in to an ancient microphone plugged into her computer. “Just wonderful Jason. Why don’t you take out that earpiece and go home?”

“Are you sure?” Although he wasn’t looking directly at any of her concealed cameras, Penelope still had a clear view of Jason’s face as it dropped.

“I’m sure. You’ve done great. I’ll swing by later with today’s results.” Penelope promised, knowing it would lift the young lad’s spirits.

“Okay. See you later.” Jason nodded, perking up once more. 

Penelope watched as he powered down the small communication device clipped to his ear. As he had no other means to carry it, Jason would wait until he got home to remove the thing. He didn’t want to upset Penelope by losing it after all. In the lab, Penelope reshuffled her pages of notes in to chronological order. Keeping sight of Jason on one monitor, she opened a report document on the other screen and began to type up her scribbles. Every so often her eyes would dart up to the monitor to keep track of the young stallion. The cameras switched to track him automatically so at least she didn’t have to pause in her typing to follow him manually. 

It didn’t take long for Jason to trot back home and in the brief period of time Penelope had finished copying up her notes. The moment Jason passed through his front door she disabled the trackers with a couple of keyboard tap. Not wasting a moment, she opened a different document on her screen and crossed Jason off of the list. 

“Who’s next?” she mused aloud. It was a completely unnecessary action but all alone in her lab she was lonely. It was nice to fill the ambient noise with her voice every once in awhile.


	2. Lungs - The Pug Problem

“Welcome home honey, we’ve been waiting for you.”

Jason had hardly placed his hoof through the opening of the front door when his mother enveloped him in a firm hug. Jason tried to push her off but his mother lingered for a moment longer before releasing him.

“Your apron itches.” Jason scowled, wiping the ratty mustache on his upper lip with his bare wrist.

“Sorry hon. I’m just pleased you’re home.” His mother beamed, her wide mouth revealing huge uneven teeth that Jason thanked his lucky stars every single day that he did not inherit from either of his parents.

“Ugh, why are you even wearing an apron anyway? It’s not like you work at the canteen.” Jason scoffed, flipping a long strand of hair out of his face.

The haircut he had was so stupid in practice but it had looked cool when some of the other boys at school were rocking it. Maybe it was because his mum had messed it up. She did the shaved undercut fine but she left the bits on top too long so his blonde hair flopped about just above his eyebrows. What Jason really wanted was some gel to spike it up but it was a bit too long so instead spike up his tail. That hair was a lot thicker and sturdier despite being longer and while his pa said that it was cool it also looked like his “ass was exploding”. Well what would an old boring centaur like his pa know? He never did anything to self-improve and he already had a wife. How was Jason supposed to get a mare to even _look_ at him if he didn’t try to look good. Not that he was really interested in girls yet. It would take him a lot of coercing to admit that.

“Actually, I do. I was on my way out to start my new job when you came home. I’m so happy to have caught you.” His mother beamed, unperturbed by her son’s attitude.

“Whatever.” Jason just shrugged and walked past his mother.

“I’ll see you at dinner. Don’t forget to wake grandpa!” His mother called after him.

Jason didn’t respond but they both knew he had heard her loud and clear. At fifteen years old, Jason was in that phase of pretending not to care or listen to anything but in reality he did exactly as he was told (albeit grudgingly). His mother was confident in her knowledge of Jason and as such let him turn his back on her and walk up the ramp to the upper level of their barn.

When he had just turned thirteen Jason had decided he was too old to sleep so close to his parents in the stalls downstairs. The barn they slept in, as all barns in their neighbourhood did, had an easy access ramp to a top level within the roof. Most families kept spare hay bales, tools, clothes and such up there but Jason had insisted to his parents that he be made a stall up there. His pa, ever the supportive parent, had even asked one of the carpenters over to carve the flaming skull design into the saloon-style doors that Jason had drawn.

Once Jason had shut himself away in his room he trotted over to the full length mirror. He ran a pale hand through his hair and spike up his slightly drooping tail a bit before moving over to the box on the single shelf in his room. Unclipping the listening device from his left ear, he swapped it out for a small golden hoop earring. At first the earring had been a dare from one of the minotaurs in his class at school but Jason actually thought it made him look older and tougher because piercings hurt. Everyone knew that.

“Hey pal, you ready for dinner?” Jason’s pa called up from the bottom of the ramp.

“Oh my _god_ ! You _named_ me Jason! Use my actual name for once!” Jason shouted back, rolling his eyes.

“Hey, Jason, you ready for dinner?” Jason’s pa tried again, his voice still ringing with enthusiasm.

“Mom only left five minutes ago. Dinner won’t even be ready yet!” Jason couldn’t believe how stupid his pa was sometimes.

“I’ll take that as a no then. Come down when you’re ready for chow, champ.”

“OH MY GOD IT’S _JASON_!”

-

Penelope was done for the day. She had conducted twelve different assessments, compiled the results collected by her team, led the debrief meeting for the day, and backed up all of the data files. All there was left to do is drop off a copy of the day’s data off at the front desk to be mailed back to her sponsors and that was it, she could go get her designated six hours of sleep before the day began all over again. She was meant to go see Jason but he could wait. She was tired and teens forget easily so it wasn’t a big deal.

Sluggishly, Penelope made her way out of the lab, data pen all packaged up and tucked safely under her arm. Half way down the hall she paused. Pivoting around, Penelope looked back towards the door of her lab but she could not see it. The lights in the light blue hall were far too bright to reveal whether she had left the light on. A small rush of air left her lungs as her shoulders slumped further to the floor. As though it had been gently shoved, her head lolled to the side as she slowly shuffled back towards the lab. Once she was close enough to peek through the frosted glass pane frozen in the top of the doorway Penelope paused. There was no illumination behind it and so once again she turned back around and ambled towards the exit.

At the front desk on the ground floor sat a team of four people, each doing a different job. Penelope came to a halt in front of one of them, a being with smooth skin that shone with the same hue of a black granite countertop. They were completely hairless and without a name tag or any distinct features in any way it was impossible to assign a gender to them. In all honesty, Penelope couldn’t care less what they were. Clearly they were someone else’s successful project but what did that matter when she had her own things to focus on? The being was helpful and she was thankful for their assistance. That’s all that mattered at the end of a long day.

Wordlessly, Penelope handed over the package. On a normal day she would have walked straight out of the building but instead she was handed a piece of paper. She read it and sighed.

“Could I have a set of keys please?” She asked politely, forcing a smile.

The being nodded and produced a pair of car keys which they then dropped in to Penelope’s pink hand.

“Thanks.” Penelope clenched her fist, screwing up the note around the keys.

The being nodded in response but remained silent. As Penelope left out of the sliding front doors the being watched with blatant disinterest. Once she was gone it turned to the next to approach it: a hulking minotaur with a snapped off horn and a half pulled-out nose ring gushing blood.

-

As Centaurs were a relatively clumsy race, Jason often ignored any loud noises in his home because they were almost always Grandpa knocking something over. As a consequence to that logic, when Jason heard a loud crash from the ground below he didn’t bat an eyelid. Instead he turned up the little wireless radio on his shelf to maximum volume and bopped his head to the fast paced metal music. The loud whine and crackle emitting from the deving hurt his small human ears but he would rather be in discomfort than respond to the call to help Grandpa up.

The stallions of the house had already all gone to the canteen for dinner, an uncomfortable event that Jason very much resented. Now they had returned, Jason resumed his previous activity of music blasting. An hour later and Jason’s stomach began to growl again. He had still been hungry once dinner was over but couldn’t be bothered to go get seconds. Composing a new poem for Penelope was a far better use of his time, plus he had a bowl of apples given to him by his mother so he would never go hungry between meals. Now though, the apples had run out, as had his creative juices. In such a short time Jason had scribbled and crossed out at least twelve pages in his secret notebook. The stanzas just weren't flowing well but Jason was certain that - after a second meal to top up his energy levels - he could turn his disjointed scribbles into something beautiful that Penelope would commend him for.

As Jason emerged from his room he could hear the muttering of voices downstairs interspersed with heavy wheezing that was almost certainly coming from his Grandpa.

“Polkan, can you tell me what happened?” Penelope’s voice, firm and clear, rung out through their barn.

Upon hearing her voice Jason instantly perked up. Clearly Penelope had arrived to tell him about his test results! Usually when she said later Penelope would swing by the next morning before school whilst on her rounds through their part of town but Jason knew he must have done so well that she couldn’t wait. But why wasn’t she asking for him then?

Although Penelope had been addressing Grandpa, he didn’t respond. It was just a series of heavy, laboured breaths and desperate gasps for air. Jason could hear the low tone of respect his pa always treated Penelope with but he was so busy trying to make sense of the situation (that should have been about him) that he missed the explanation of Grandpa’s accident.

“I see.” Penelope’s words were accompanied by the tink of metal being placed on the flagstone floor.

Jason crept forward to see Penelope’s rosy hands pulling some sort of tube and tank device out of a black duffle bag. Intrigued, he tried to place one hoof silently in front of the other, inching forward down the ramp so as not to draw attention to himself.

From the better vantage point he could see Penelope, sat on her knees next to Grandpa who was lying down, his upper torso and head leaning so that he might rest up against the door to his stall. Jason’s pa hovered by the foot of the tamp, his back to Jason, his tail swishing nervously. That was never a good sign, Jason thought, leading him to the conclusion that Penelope wasn’t hear to talk about his review at all.

“This is a common problem among Gen One. It’s already claimed a lot of their lives. Your father has done quite well, all things considered.” Penelope began, pulling a thick leather harness out of her bag.

 _Gen One?_ That was a phrase Jason had never encountered before. He wanted to ask what it meant but he was scared to open his mouth. Adults tended to stop speaking around him and he was desperate to be in the loop for once.

“Actually, a friend of my termed it The Pug Problem, which doesn’t quite hit it on the nose but it is close enough.” Penelope hid a sly smile behind a sheet of pink hair as she began to strap the harness on around Grandpa.

“I don’t understand, Doctor Hock.” Jason’s pa folded his arms and stepped in place, tail swishing more violently than ever.

“As you know, Gen One has full mammalian lungs. They are less efficient than yours at breathing in oxygen. Gen Two and Three - you and your son - have an avian-based respiration system containing air sacs. It makes your breathing more efficient than your father-in-law’s, hence your ability to exert more energy without getting breathless. For example, you can sprint for short bursts. Did you not attend this seminar in school?” Penelope paused in slotting the tank and tubes into the harness to give Jason’s pa a quizzical look.

“I left school at thirteen when Jason was born,” Jason’s pa revealed, surprising Jason more than he cared to admit. “If I had attended the seminar, it was fifteen years ago at least.”

“Of course,” Penelope nodded. “Then I’ll do a basic recap for you. No only in your father-in-law’s organs for respiration less efficient than yours on the inside, but look at his nose and mouth,” she pointed for emphasis. “They’re significantly smaller than yours.”

“They’re the same size as Jason’s.” Pa interjected .

“Yes but remember, Jason is like you. Only he struggles slightly more to breathe when doing physical activity. That’s because with a bigger mouth and nose, you can take in more oxygen with each breath. Polkan can’t. His breathing tools are too small to fill the capacity of his lungs, so his blood can’t oxygenate properly.” Penelope explained, her tone never once conveying anything less than respect.

A lot of educated people tended to talk down to Centaurs like Jason’s pa, including some of Jason’s school teachers. Never Penelope though. She just offered up explanations, taking time and care to answer any questions.

“You keep saying oxygenate but what does that mean?” Jason’s pa asked, his need to understand overriding his pride.

“Blood needs oxygen to burn fuel - so the food you eat - to create energy so that you can do things as simple as moving. What happened here was that Polkan expended more energy than he could replenish by chasing the rat. His mouth and nose are too small so he couldn’t breathe in enough natural oxygen to replenish the energy, hence the collapse, wheezing, and so on.” Penelope paused to bring a clear tube over Grandpa’s ears and under his nose.

“Does he not store up excess oxygen throughout the day?” Jason’s pa asked the question that Jason wanted to. It would make sense to store up excess oxygen, right?

“No. I won’t go into now but there’s this thing called the Kreb’s Cycle which means this thing called haemoglobin in the blood is constantly replaced so blood is constantly deoxygenated.” Penelope explained.

“Oh. What is that?” Jason’s pa cocked his head to the side and pointed at the tank.

“I’ve attached some oxygen tanks to your father-in-law’s back. He should still be strong enough to carry them around with him. Basically they will provide him with extra oxygen to breathe in which should help his system get back on track,” Penelope stood up and dusted off her knees before looking at Jason’s pa directly. “I’m going to come back first thing tomorrow and do a spirometer test with him. This is only a temporary fix but it may end up being more permanent if your father-in-law is as ill as I think he is.”

“I’ll let Annie know. Can we take Polkan to the canteen or should we bring him back something?” Jason’s pa sounded very grave, shaking Jason to his core. He couldn’t imagine losing Grandpa.

“Get Annie and some of the kitchen staff to give you a basket or something to bring back to him. Right now he’s going to be tired and dizzy. You might have to spoon-feed him,” Penelope sighed and picked up the significantly drooping duffle bag.

She walked over to Jason’s pa and gave him a sympathetic smile.

“It’ll be alright Coltwell. I’ll bring over some stuff in the morning, leaflets on how home oxygen therapy works, advice on how to deal with serious illness in the family, things that’ll help you all.”

Then, without missing a beat, she stepped back and turned up to look at Jason.

“Your grandpa isn’t well. He’s going to be okay but you have to help out your ma and pa look after him, okay?”

Jason’s pa turned to look up at him. His eyes reflected Jason’s own anxiety but his face seemed calmer than his son’s.

“Come help me get Grandpa into his stall please champ?” The perky tone was a bit strained.

For once Jason did as he was asked without a snarky comment. He was hesitant to join the adults on the floor below but once he was there not a second was spared before the two stallions were helping Grandpa up off the floor. As they did this Penelope slipped out into the night, taking long strides back to her car. She would still get her full six hours sleep, that wasn't even a concern. It was just that sleep could not come soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Jeepo from the Drawfee discord who gave me the names for Jason's parents

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the character of Jason, he is the property of @DrawfeeShow. This work of fiction is inspired by the YouTube video "Other Teenage Mutants" published by the Drawfee Channel. Some lines of dialogue have been replicated from this episode.


End file.
